An Exclusive Hits Interview with INDIO by Holly Gleason ©August 21, 1989
INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER
27-year old Gordon Peterson never dreamed of being a musician when he grew up. Big Harvest, his debut A&M release, is more the result of finding a guitar lying around his Canadian home and "a confusion I was feeling at the time. After grade 13, most people go straight to university...but, I had all these things I needed to communicate." To call "Hard Sun," the LP's anthemic single featuring a response vocal from no less than Joni Mitchell, environmentally aware would be like calling Three Mile Island a thermal blanket. HITS' Holly Gleason's something of a wet blanket, but even she couldn't smother Peterson's fire.
Indio's a strange
name. Where did it come from?
When I was recording the second half of the album, I was staying at Larry Klein's
house in L.A. One afternoon, I drove down to Mexico and the last town before
I crossed the border was named Indio, which I really loved. I figured I'd use
it in some lyrics, something--and then I decided I didn't really want to use
my name on the album, because it's not really a solo album, and it fit.
Yes, but Indio isn't
a band...
It's somewhere in the middle. I definately started out with band sensibilities;
but once we started recording, I found working with the same three, four people
limiting. So, it's still people playing together, it's just that we vary them.
If it's not a band,
what is it?
It's more of a project, I guess. Or a band with varying and changing members.
I just never felt right about calling it a solo record, because other that writing
the songs and doing the rough arrangements, most of the songs are the result
of the people who played on them.
With a revolving
cast of players who all contributed to the arrangements, how do you maintain
consistency?
It's the attitude really. It doesn't change. We made the songs around the players
rather than imposing the songs on them. We looked for people who could bring
in what we wanted and we let them play.
Lryically, your
songs come from a slightly deeper place than, say, New Kids On The Block.
The songs are very much how I live my life. When I'm writing I figure out what
the songs are about, then I go on and finish 'em.
Where does the environmental
awareness come from?
My grandfather had a farm in Northern Ontario where I picked tobacco every summer
from the time I was 15, which is even worse that picking cotton because you
get covered with this sticky brown stuff. But, when you're out on the land every
day laboring, you can't help but develop a respect and a love for it.
Is that what's behind
"Hard Sun"?
That's a very interesting song, because some people don't quite get it. It's
written in the guise of a relationship between a man and a woman. The woman
represents Mother Earth and she's slipping away from him -- and it's about how
one person can completely throw off the whole balance. Yet, there are lots of
people who just don't get the metaphor.
Obviously Joni Mitchell
(who supplies the response vocal) did.
We were recording that song at Larry Klein's house, who was producing that part
of the album, and well , Joni owns half the house, too. She had this melody
and asked if she could try it on there.I'd always heard the answer part -- I'd
never felt good about singing that "Big Harvest" part -- so, I gave
her the lyric sheet and she went down to the studio. It was about midnight,
and she was through by 3 or 4. Then I got inspired and went down to the studio
to try to do the lead vocal. I got to bed around 7 that morning.
Are you a slave
to inspiration?
Well, when you lock into something, you just try to go as long as you can...if
it's a feeling, you try to tap into it and keep going, because even if you're
exhausted, you've got that, whereas if you go to bed and come back rested, what
have you got if the feeling's gone? That's too risky.
You came to music
late in life. Do you have any training? What kind of things appeal to you?
I listen to stuff that has a lot of captured moments in it. And when I write,
it's more about what I'm thinking and feeling instead of viewing music as a
forum for what I'm trying to say. But, none of this is something I set out to
do: I don't write or read music, I just play -- intuitively, just trying to
follow the song. And I can now, finally, write down some chords.